Race 31 of 33: Texas 300 at Texas Motor Speedway
Track Specs: 1.5-mile quad-oval / 200 laps
Weather: Sunny, 63 degrees
Race Winner: Kyle Busch
Harvick’s Finish: 8th
Kevin Harvick earned his 25th consecutive top-10 finish in NASCAR Nationwide Series competition with an eighth-place result in Saturday’s 300-mile race at Texas Motor Speedway. The race wrapped up Harvick’s 15-race Nationwide Series campaign with JR Motorsports in which he notched four wins, 12 top-five and 15 top-10 finishes.
On Saturday, the No. 5 Hunt Brothers Pizza Chevrolet started seventh and slowly crept its way inside the top five by lap 67. To remedy an early loose handling condition, crew chief Ernie Cope called for a major track-bar adjustment on the team’s first pit stop. Shortly after the pit stop, Harvick confirmed the changes had improved his car as he sliced his way through traffic into fourth-place at lap 86.
After a slight hiccup on a lap-98 pit stop dropped Harvick to eighth, the two-time series champion told the team his car simply needed track position to help its handling. The race featured a 63-lap green-flag stretch to the finish and prevented Harvick from climbing any higher than eighth at the checkered flag.
Kyle Busch cruised to his seventh Nationwide Series victory of the season followed by Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliott and Matt Kenseth.
Ernie Cope, crew chief No. 5 Hunt Brothers Pizza team
“Today was a little bit of a struggle. It was a real fine line between having the car too loose and too tight. We got it right on the run where Kevin was able to drive up through there and got to fourth. After that, we lost a little track position and could never get it back. All in all, it’s been a fun season with Kevin. We were able to win races and run strong every time out.”